Threshold
by subversivegrrl
Summary: Carol goes "toy shopping", and decides to push the envelope on her relationship.
1. Wicked Thoughts

Daryl and Michonne had cleared a truck stop of walkers a few days before, but said there was plenty more useful stock left, and the run should be relatively safe, so - did Carol want to get out of the prison for a change? Daryl barked out a laugh as she _whoop_ed and bolted for their cell to grab her pack, so fast he almost looked to see if she'd left smoking tracks.

* * *

At the truck stop, they split up into pairs - Daryl and Glenn to check the trucks abandoned in the lot first for walkers, then tools, food, or other useful pickings; Michonne and Carol to the convenience store section.

They found a bakery cart full of moldy bread and dumped it so they could load up the shelves with canned goods, any boxes that hadn't been mouse-nibbled, whatever looked salvageable. There was always a fine balance between getting in and out quickly, and grabbing as many supplies as they could each trip, to make the gas count - triaging what they picked up for usability came in third, but not by much.

They were nearly through the shelves and Michonne was guiding the loaded cart back out to the truck when Carol noticed another door toward the back of the store, almost hidden between the last set of shelves and the restrooms. Stepping quietly off to the side, listening for any tell-tale rustles or thumps, she stretched out a toe to bump the swinging door and quickly drew back, gun held before her. Nothing.

The bold black and red letters on the sign read, "MUST BE 18 TO ENTER. VIDEO SURVEILLANCE IN USE." Carol used her forearm to push the door open, holding the gun low in her free hand, squinting into the darkness and listening hard to be sure she didn't have company in there. All she could see were a black-painted counter and some sort of display cabinet, and beyond that, ranks of metal racks, and some kind of clothing, maybe t-shirts, hanging off the wall.

She stepped back out, letting the door swing closed, and spotted Michonne coming in the front. "_Michonne_!" she hissed, drawing the other woman's attention. She gestured to the hidden door and stage-whispered, "_I think it's clear, but it's pitch-dark in there and I'm not sure."_ Michonne nodded and moved to Carol's side, handing her an over-sized flashlight and speaking in a low voice. "As soon as I go through, hit that, but keep the light low or you'll blind me." Carol was grateful to follow Michonne's experienced lead - as well as her deadly _katana._

The flashlight gleamed off the chrome wire racks, and Michonne's cautious tread came to a dead stop in front of the first. Suddenly she waved Carol back, and reversed course at high speed. Carol, utterly panicked, turned and ran for the exit, but was brought up short by the sound of peals of laughter. Michonne was bent over in front of the door, clutching her thighs and cackling hysterically. Straightening and finally catching her breath, she grinned wickedly at Carol. "Oh, girl, that's the best laugh I've had in months. Do you know what kind of jackpot you've found? It's a porn shop. Or an 'adult video store', whatever you want to call it. Come on," she said, her eyes sparkling. "Help me prop the door open so we've got some light to see by. I want to see what other sort of goodies they've got. Don't worry - if there were any walkers in here, we'd know by now."

Carol hung back, unsure if she even wanted to know what kinds of things were sold in a sleazy place like that. She had known they existed, obviously, but never in a million, trillion years would she have expected to set foot inside one. Finally her curiosity got the best of her and she crept inside. Confronted by a parade of explicit images all around her - _breasts and penises and mouths, oh my!_ - her face flamed immediately and she pressed her hands to her cheeks, feeling their searing heat. Michonne was stalking around with the flashlight, chuckling to herself from time to time, and once letting out a crow of triumph, _Yesss!_ as she found something she particularly liked.

The t-shirt rack turned out to hold a small selection of naughty underwear and other sexy clothes, and Michonne waved a couple of things at Carol, saying, "You really need to get over here and check this stuff out. Who knows when we'll ever see anything like this again, and I think you should give Daryl a treat!" Carol was mortified at the thought. A woman her age had no business displaying herself in that kind of trashy get-up - that was the kind of thing that young women with taut bodies got to do, not 40-something-year-old mothers with poochy bellies and saggy breasts.

"I am _so_ sad right now that we don't have any way of playing DVDs back at the prison," said Michonne, coming up with her arms full of pleather and red lace and shiny spandex. "We could definitely spice the ol' place up with what's in here. Here, I got you something." Carol automatically reached out and took the wisp of black lacy fabric from Michonne's hand - what must be a pair of panties, but there was so little to them, she wasn't even sure how you were supposed to put them on. "They're crotchless," remarked Michonne, sorting through her plunder on the counter. "Give that man a thrill. I doubt he's ever seen anything like that on a real live girl."

Michonne took her armload of goodies out into the store and stuffed them into her duffel bag. As Carol turned to follow her out, she caught a glimpse of what lay in the front case, and her face went crimson again. Not anatomically correct, by any means, but there could be no doubt what purpose those were designed for.

Her breath caught in her throat, and she felt a warm fluttering in her belly. Years before, she had thought about buying herself a vibrator, but that's as far as it went - she knew that if Ed had ever found such a thing in his home, he would literally have killed her. Only _filthy whores_ knew about such things, according to Ed, just as only filthy whores wanted sex to feel good. She had learned differently since then, had learned to appreciate just how good it could be with a man who wanted nothing more than to please her, but this was one thing she was having trouble seeing in that new light.

She heard Daryl's boots out in the main lobby, just as his voice cut through the quiet. "_Carol! Michonne! We got company comin', let's GO!"_ She stuffed the little lace panties in her pocket and started toward the door, but stopped and ran back, ducking under the counter's access panel. She stared at the display for a moment, then selected a long, heavily-veined, pearly-blue model and dropped it into her pack. _Batteries_, she thought wildly. _What kind of batteries does it take?_ She dropped to her knees and yanked open the drawer under the cabinet, and was rewarded by the sight of several dozen packages of batteries of various sizes. Batteries were always a must-get, and she grabbed them with both hands, cramming them in on top of her prize. She zipped the pack closed and picked up a couple that had fallen to the floor.

"_CAROL!_" Daryl's voice was heated. "Get the hell out here, we're goin'!" She ran for the door, her head spinning with images of what her pack held. "Batteries," she explained, waving a package as she slid into the seat next to him. "That's good," he nodded. "Can always use those. But when I say 'go,' that means we gotta go. Can't be dawdlin', even for something good, y'hear?"

"Yes, sir, I understand. I won't make that mistake again." He made a mouth and side-eyed her, a little irritated.

"Looky what I got," smirked Michonne, leaning forward to show them the pair of fake-fur-padded handcuffs dangling from her finger. Daryl roared with surprised laughter. "Jesus fuck, I don't even wanna know." Carol and Glenn both turned pink, and they all headed home in high spirits.


	2. No Limits

Carol tugged her pack from Daryl's hands, saying, "no, that's OK, I've got it. I'll find a spot to stash all these batteries for now, we can sort through them later," and she breathed a sigh of relief when he moved to start shifting boxes off the truck's gate. She wasn't going to hide it from him, but she needed to go someplace private first and figure out which of the batteries her new toy actually required, and she needed to think about how he was likely to react, and decide how she was going to introduce him to it. She couldn't stop blushing.

* * *

Michonne had herself a fine old time over dinner, describing their exploration of the sex shop, showing off her fuzzy handcuffs (no one was sure who she had in mind to be on the receiving end of those), and moaning over the lack of a portable DVD player. She made Maggie turn almost purple with chagrin by tossing a sheer, teal-blue baby doll negligee across the table to her. "Wear it in good health, sweetheart, and Glenn, be gentle; they're not making those any more." Michonne had shed a lot of the psychic armor she'd worn when she first joined the group, and it made Carol feel crazily happy to see her so relaxed and spontaneous. Carol's assertion that her best find of the day was the packs of batteries drew a raised eyebrow and a disbelieving grin from the other woman, and Carol had to get up and leave the table for fear her face would give her away.

* * *

She and Daryl were still working out the sex thing. They hadn't been sleeping together long enough to have learned all the rhythms of being with each other, but what they lacked in polish they more than made up for in enthusiasm. Carol couldn't remember ever feeling so at ease with her own body - not only being so comfortable naked with him, but not worrying about being too loud in her passion (feeling a kind of pride in carrying the love marks he left on her), not being embarrassed if someone else saw her in the shower, not caring if she bent over and everyone could see right down her shirt. Part of it was that there were almost no boundaries anymore, no real private spaces in their prison home, but most of it was because every day, she saw herself reflected in his eyes, and he couldn't get enough of looking at her. It made her feel incredibly sexy. If she was OK with him, then to hell with everyone else; Carol was just fine the way she was, lines and folds and scars and all, and she didn't care who looked.

So it was a very different Carol from the one who'd existed before the world ended, who slid out from beneath a warm and sleepy Daryl early the next morning and padded over to the small desk to retrieve the vibrator. She figured that springing it on him in the middle of sex would be the quickest way to send him fleeing from their bed; what she wanted was for him to warm to the idea, like she had. Since the previous afternoon, she had been almost too warm, all the time, thinking about it.

"I got us a present yesterday, Daryl." He turned his face out of the pillow and looked at her with one eye open. She twisted the base of the thing and it hummed in her hand. Daryl's eyes went wide and then narrow and he lurched upright, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and banging his head against the underside of the upper bunk in the process.

"_Ow_. The _fuck_ is that thing?" he demanded, his voice tight and low. His eyes burned with something like anger and something like anxiety. Well, this wasn't going quite as she had envisioned.

"It's just a vibrator, Daryl. If it makes you uncomfortable I'll put it away." She set it aside (but left it out in sight) and went to sit next to him on the bed.

"Why the fuck did you get something like that, anyway? Is what you're gettin' from me every night not enough, you gotta have yourself an extra dick?" Really not going like she'd thought. She'd thought he might find it funny at first, and laughing with him was always sexy. Now he was all agitated and out of sorts.

"It's no reflection on you, sweetheart, I just wanted to see what it would be like. I always wanted one before, but I couldn't have one. Ed wouldn't…" He spit out a _fuckin' Ed_ and glared at her. "People use them for other things than sex, too - they're supposed to be good for when your shoulders are tense, or when you've got a knotted muscle… you might find you like it."

"You wanna use that thing on me? 'cause you know I ain't wired like that."

"Like what, Daryl - gay? I know you're not gay. Besides, how could it be gay if it was me?" She was beginning to see the problem. This was just too far outside of his normal, too weird, and maybe part of it was that he didn't know what it would mean if he found he _did_ like it?

"Look," she started. "I… I like giving you pleasure."

"You do, woman. And I want to please you, too. What does that…?"

"Don't. Just let me say this." She took a deep breath. "It's only pleasure, Daryl. Just nerve endings, and skin, and loving." When he didn't interrupt again, she went on.

"Do you even know what it is you do to me? When I'm with you, and it's so sweet and good, you fill me up… and when you tell me to come for you, I can't hold back, and it's like... like getting hit by lightning, only no pain." Just telling him made her flush and squirm. "Sometimes it's _just so good_, I don't know, it feels like maybe if it were any better it would kill me. And I want to make you feel like that." His eyes had softened. He nodded, urging her on.

"I want to make you howl at the moon, Daryl," she said, teasing, but meaning every word. "I want to make you feel so much you forget your own name." Now he was smiling, just a little.

"You know that I would never, ever want to hurt you, or make you do anything you don't want to do. So could you just trust me a little on this? Take this step with me? I'm on new ground here, too. And if there's anything you don't like, we'll stop."

He was silent for a minute or so, considering. Then, "So - is this the part where I tell you my safe word?"

Her laughter burst up out of the tight spot in her chest, and she leaned over into him, nestling into his solid warmth. "Oh, Daryl - where the hell did you learn about safe words?"

She could feel his grin against the top of her head. "I been known to read a book or two."

She stood quickly, before they could lose the moment, and settled back next to him, the vibrator in her hand. Turning it on, she gently ran it up his forearm, caught his wrist with her free hand and turned it to allow the vibrations to carry over the soft flesh inside his elbow, and on up over his bicep. She stroked it slowly over his shoulder, the one that gave him pain when the weather changed, and into the hollow of his collarbone. Daryl shivered, and his breathing deepened, but he didn't pull away.

She let the tip of it glide down over his chest, over his nipple, and followed it with her lips, sucking hard at the little pebble and hearing his breath hitch, a little groan in his throat. She edged in closer to his body, chasing his other nipple, and moved the vibrator to let it drift over the back of his neck, pressing it into his spine and running it quickly down to rest in the small of his back. He growled then, and his hands came up, grabbing her hard and turning her beneath him. His thigh came up between her legs and pressed firmly into her center as his mouth came down to cover hers. The vibrator fell unnoticed to the bed beside them.

Her hands fisted in his hair as he ground into her, kissing her neck and lips like a starving man, her breath coming in short, ragged bursts. This was what he did to her, night after night - made her lose all sense of time and place, everything except the glorious way he made her feel. She opened her eyes to find his face intent on hers, his eyes dark, hot and avid and fierce, as he watched her start to fall apart. He pulled away from her then, reaching off to the side and finding the buzzing vibrator among the blankets.

"My turn."

He ran his hand up under the thin tank she wore to sleep in, pushing it up above her breasts, and began to draw little circles with the vibrator, all over her belly. She could feel her wetness begin to coat her thighs as he dipped the tip of it into her navel, letting it travel south, under the band of her shorts, following the fine line of hairs down to her mound. She gasped as he pressed it lightly into the pad of flesh over her clit, pressed and released, pressed and released, making her buck under his hand. She gripped his thigh, feeling his hardness against her, wanting his weight back on her, wanting him inside her, but he kept on, stroking the humming blue over her hipbone, over her nipples, over her lips, and then like an arrow slipped it between her thighs, the length of it pulsing against her, making her mewl with the sensation. "Jesus, Daryl, please…"

He moved over her quickly, his big hands coming up under the cheeks of her ass, stripping the shorts off her, the vibrator falling to the floor, and her legs opened wide so he could sink into her. He braced himself above her with one hand, his hips thrusting hard against her, watching her face twist and melt, her mouth wide and panting. He slipped his other hand between them and set two fingers against her the way she liked, their movements giving her the friction she needed, and her thighs clamped down on his hips as she went rigid, her muscles gripping him tight inside her, a choked cry rising from her like some kind of night bird.

He slowed, murmuring into her hair as he continued to rock against her, thinking she was spent. Her eyes fluttered open, and she gasped, "fuck me hard, Daryl, _now!_" His name and the unaccustomed obscenity coming out of her beautiful mouth hit him like a bullet, and he raised up on his hands, his hips shotgunning her now, plunging deep, out of control, riding her like his life depended on it. She lifted up to meet him, biting into his shoulder, muffling a jagged scream as the waves hit her, and he slammed his body into hers, coming like a rocket, slumping over her, shuddering, exhausted.

The sound of her sobbing brought him back to the present, and he gathered her in his arms, both of them trembling with the aftershocks. "Shit, Carol, did I hurt you?"

Her face, when she turned to him, was wild and electric with joy, and she laughed shakily. "Oh, no, baby. No. Not hurt, not at all." Her hand caressed his face, her eyes wide with wonder. "That was… incredible. I never came twice like that before, never. I didn't know it was even possible to feel something like that. I… It just ran me over. I can't even tell you."

He sank down beside her, holding her close. She curled up against him, her body still buzzing, stroking his skin, marveling at his ability to completely wreck her. "Oh, you beautiful man," she whispered. "Now do you understand?"

They lay quietly together for a while, his hand rubbing lazily over her hip, and he sighed, totally loose and content. "I don't guess there's gonna be any breakfast left."

She smiled, thinking that she didn't mind the trade-off, not one bit. "I think we can make do on our own - I'm sure there are a couple of granola bars in my pack, and we still may be able to find a cup of coffee down there."

After a minute she peeked up at him through her lashes, watching his peaceful face, not quite awake, but not sleeping yet either. "Well, now that we've had a test drive, Daryl - what do you think of my new toy?" She held her breath, waiting to hear whether she had irrevocably changed what was between them.

His voice sounded a bit skeptical. "I dunno. I guess I have one small complaint to make…"

She pushed herself up, to be able to look him in the face. "And what is that, exactly?"

He opened one eye and grinned at her. "You shoulda got two."

She laughed out loud, dazzled by how he always managed to surprise her, even now. "It just so happens that I know a little shop…"


End file.
